Hydroponic farming company going strong in 2023

The cost of food has always been a concern in northern communities, but one Ontario-based company has developed a solution for year-round food access through modular farms.

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Ottawa company Growcer inc. makes modular farms out of 40-foot structures that can sustain harsh conditions. Its farms use hydroponics, a technique that uses nutrient-rich water rather than soil.

Farmtario first profiled Growcer’s technology in 2019. Since then, the company has continued to grow, and now has more than 70 farms growing 10 million servings of vegetables across Canada.

Why it matters: Modular farming can allow food to be grown in remote communities.

Growcer co-founder Alida Burke said the idea of year-round hydroponic farming began with a trip she took to Iqaluit in 2015.

“My business partner and I were just students at the time for our undergrads at UOttawa, and we had the opportunity to go north through some activities we were doing,” she said.

“It was through that trip that we were able to go to Iqaluit and really experience that typical sticker-shock that is very common for folks coming up north for the first time.”

It was “very expensive for any sort of produce, but ultimately any type of food and other sort of materials because it has to travel such long distances to get there,” she said.

“It got us thinking in terms of how we could use burgeoning technology such as hydroponics in this instance and use it in a social entrepreneurship type of way.”

Burke said several cultural factors have contributed to the company’s growth and success since 2019.

“We see a lot of growing interest in hyper-local growing or growing local and that sort of movement and bringing things closer to where they’re ultimately being consumed.

“We’re seeing more and more commercial applications for this, not just in northern Canada, but in southern Canada too.”

Burke also cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a major driver of change for the company.

“2019 was right before the big P word if you will, the pandemic. And for us, I think it was an interesting interaction point.”

The pandemic showed the reliance of food systems on supply chains outside Canada, and how quickly they can become fragile.

“I think it showed us that … any person, whether in Canada or internationally, (can) find interesting ways to support their local community through this type of technology, whether it be for a revenue stream, job opportunities, or growing food to be sold or donating a portion to their community.”

Burke said inflation may prompt people to try new ways of growing food locally and the hydroponic farms are a profitable option for many Growcer clients.

“The Muskoka North club in Muskoka area is running one and they see it as supporting their mission, but also as a business,” Burke said. “They saw a 10 per cent increase in their overall business for their other food items because they have local vegetables available through their farm.”

Growcer has also forged several community partnerships. In May 2021, it connected with the Reena Foundation, a non-profit that provides affordable housing to individuals with developmental disabilities.
Reena Foundation’s Fred Winegust said their adoption of Growcer units has been beneficial.

“We looked at the Growcer container and started to realize that the crops that we grew not only offset the cost of the operation of the hydroponic container, but could also help fund some of the programs that we were running outdoors for the individuals that we support,” he said.

The units have also allowed Reena, which operates “within a framework of Jewish culture and values” to grow kosher certified vegetables.

“One of the things that we discovered in our early outdoor growing was that there was a requirement within the community that the leafy greens that we grew were kosher, and therefore be bug free,” said Winegust.

“There is a limited supply of reliable leafy greens deemed kosher, even if we wash carefully. What we ended up doing is creating something where washing in order to do a bug check will no longer really be required because we’ve proven to the certifying authority that we can maintain a bug free environment.”

Winegust thinks this could be adopted more widely by those who observe kosher and halal rules.

“If that’s part of their business justification, then yes, we would see this model and the practices that we’ve put in place replicated.”

Reena also modified its Growcer unit to create the first wheelchair-accessible vertical farming unit in Canada.

In 2019, Growcer sales manager Bill McMillan said “people weren’t thinking about this technology five years ago.”

Four years after that statement, Burke says people are paying attention.

“I think more and more, as this type of technology develops further and becomes more mainstream, there’s a lot of opportunities associated with it,” she said.

“When we hear folks come to us and also just speaking to others in our community and family friends, food is always at the core of community, right? It brings people together.”